Pigeon Forge, TN: Christmas Cabin

Back in September, Eric's mom surprised us with booking a cabin for his side of the family for Christmas. Can I tell you how fun it was to have 3 months to think about going to this cabin? I had never stayed in a cabin before and the pictures on the website (this is exactly where we were!) made it look absolutely awesome.

And it was pretty awesome. The cabin had 3 floors, a "basement", main level, and upper level. The basement was not really underground -- the cabins all along the mountain are built into the mountain on concrete bases made to look like stone. It's actually really cool. Each level had its own balcony with several rocking chairs. The upper level's balcony also had a hot tub!

The basement had a living area with a TV and computer, two bedrooms with queen-sized beds, and a bathroom. This is where we slept (all except the first night, when the heat down here was broken; then we slept on the pull-out couch in the main level living room). The computer had an Atari game console emulator on it; we managed to get it to work for a few minutes (that thing sure was finicky) and played Asteroids and Pac Man :)

The main level had the kitchen, dining area, family room (with electric fireplace, tv, and Christmas tree), bedroom, and bathroom, along with 51 bears. Our cabin was called Beverly's Bearadise, after all. We spent most of our time here. Eric's sister set up all the presents to look so pretty by the fireplace, and it was awesome to have a decorated tree already set up for us. Most of the pictures I took of the views were from this level.

The upper level was where a lot of game action was: there was a foosball table, pool table, and air hockey table, along with another tv and an outdoor hot tub. (There was also another bedroom and fancy bathroom with jacuzzi tub up there.) When we weren't playing card games or eating, we were up here playing pool and foosball.

I am so happy we got to go to this cabin for Christmas! It was nice to have everyone together but have room to spread out (cough 21-person-Thanksgiving-in-1600-square-feet cough). Having a kitchen was great too, so we didn't have to eat out the whole time we were there. The scenery was simply amazing. I'm glad it didn't snow or ice, though, because we would have been stuck either at the top or bottom of the mountain. There were some steep curves getting up and down!

Have you ever rented a cabin or house while on vacation? I would definitely do it again! Because I can't help it, here are lots more pictures from our time there: